The Grifters (Dolandırıcılar)

Directed by Stephen Frears and produced by Martin Scorsese, the 1990 American neo-noir crime film The Grifters was scripted by Donald E. Westlake from Jim Thompson's 1963 novel. At its center is Roy Dillon, a young hustler surviving on petty short cons, whose routine is shattered when Lilly, the mother he has not seen in years and who pulls betting scams for organized crime, walks back into his life. Roy's lover Myra, a grifter as well, takes an instant dislike to Lilly, and the young man finds himself trapped between two women who are both experts at manipulation. Faced with the choice of quitting the racket or aiming for far bigger scores, Roy is drawn into a deadly triangle where no one can be sure who is playing whom. John Cusack, Anjelica Huston and Annette Bening head the cast. Following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the picture received four Academy Award nominations, for Huston, Bening, Frears's direction and Westlake's screenplay. It also claimed the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and a place among the National Board of Review's ten best films of the year.